Music has played a significant role in visual artist Fitz Herrera’s creative life and art making process. He had intentions to be formally trained in the Conservatory of Music at the University of Santo Tomas, but opted to study Advertising instead. Still, he lived a musical life as a drummer to various bands.

Those music inclinations are made manifest in his solo exhibition “A Subconscious Sound,” which is inspired by his passion for music along with his favorite songs. The works in the exhibit are the direct transmittal of the artist’s emotions on the canvas, underscored by a sense of unrestrained freedom. There is a musicality to the physicality of his paintings and the way it interacts with his psyche and inner views of existence.

Like improvisational music, Herrera takes full control of his medium, freely and extemporaneously composing brilliant abstractions. The manner in which he expresses himself conforms to stylistic norms, but remains unfettered by prescriptive and formalistic features of visual art.

Fitz Herrera is a visual artist born in Caloocan, raised in Nueva Vizaya, and currently based in Metro Manila. It’s this exposure to both rural and city life that provided him a good contrast in environments and aesthetics that nurtured his creativity. Herrera got his start as a formally trained artist producing figurative works, but he has since found more freedom in abstraction, channeling the sense of freedom and unrestrained creativity that notable abstractionists such as Cy Twombly, Bernardo Pacquing, and Jose Joya had.